Last night was incredibly clear here in Ireland with a steady (and very cold) north breeze, but this shot was worth the effort ! The Planet Mars and the Crab Nebula M1 were very close together, less than a degree, so I set up my GOTO CG5 mount and after a lot of time polar aligning, I mounted my Celestron C80ED refractor with my Canon 400D and set about the task. At 12 midnight, I could see the Planet Mars clearing the Northeast horizon, a blazing orange sight at magnitude 0.2. I fired off 20 exposures at ISO 1600 for 45 seconds each to capture the Supernova Remanant the Crab Nebula M1, and at magnitude 9 in contast to the brightness of Mars, it was quite a challenge!

I eventually could only use 11 frames due to wind, in addition to 10 dark frames all stacked in Deepsky Stacker. Finally, I just done some Minor adjustments in Photoshop, and this is the result. What a difference the APO glass in the C80ED makes.

I hope you enjoy it...I'm pleased with it.
Keith..

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1252/...5bcda1ff_o.jpg

Very cool shot. Great job getting this two objects in one final image.

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Observatorio de la Ballona

Hi Keith.

Great photo. Clear skies to you. Paul

Pretty Neat Keith, It's a Great shot well done.

Great image. The crab nebula part reminds me of what it looks like visually through a larger reflector.

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My Astrophotography Gallery
Solar System Imaging Simulator

Great photo.

Kind regards
Matt